City of Lawrence

Public Transit

TO:	Dave Corliss, City Manager
FROM:	Robert A. Nugent, Public Transit Administrator
CC:	Diane Stoddard, Assistant City Manager
Date:	June 28, 2012
RE:	Transit as a Secondary Use at the Santa Fe Depot

In November 2011 City Commission directed staff to evaluate the possibility of Lawrence Transit as a secondary use for the Santa Fe Depot. As part of this process staff was also directed to obtain public comments from the neighbors and property owners in the immediate vicinity of the site. In response staff performed both a cursory planning analysis and a preliminary engineering analysis and determined there was adequate, yet limited, space to accommodate both administrative and operational elements of transit service at the depot.

Having established that both transit administrative and operational functions could be accommodated into the existing site an open house was held in February 2012. Although the primary purpose of the open house was to present architectural construction documents associated with the complete rehabilitation of the Depot staff decided to include preliminary drawings depicting the possibility of a secondary use of the depot for public transit operations. The event was well attended and staff received numerous comments both in support of and in opposition to transit as a secondary use.

Since the open house was held, staff has held several discussions with BNSF pertaining to the potential availability of additional office space in order to accommodate transit’s administrative needs. BNSF does not appear interested in sharing or giving up office space that is current designated for its office use.  Without additional space the transit administrative functions would not be able to perform in the same manner as they perform today. The lack of office space would force staff to hold off-site meetings. This would necessitate closing portions of the depot during the day therefore leaving it unoccupied and unmonitored. Another difficulty that would have to be overcome is the lack of storage. This is vitally important to the transit administrative function due to Federal and State regulatory requirements pertaining to continued control and access of both historic and current documents.

An additional issue has also arisen since the open house in February 2012. In order to address some of the community’s concerns some mitigation would need to be considered. In specific, efforts to buffer the immediate residential area from any real or perceived issues associated with a bus staging area. The linear bus operation that was presented in February 2012 was the only viable option for bus operations due to both the orientation and limitation of space contained within the site. Appropriate mitigation would not be possible due to this same lack of available space.

For the reasons discussed above staff recommends that any further consideration of public transit as a secondary use at the Santa Fe Depot be discontinued.